Egypt’s army may intervene to prevent conflict
June 23, 2013, 8:59 pm

Al-Sisi says the army cannot allow for violence to continue [Getty Images]

Egypt’s Defense Minister Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi told a gathering of officers that the army is obliged to interfere to prevent the country from sliding into a dark tunnel of conflicts, Egyptian media reported on Sunday.

Al-Sisi spoke a week ahead of planned nation-wide protests, which many say could determine the fate of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi or spur a new revolution. Others, however, fear that the protests planned for June 30 could pit anti-Morsi protesters against the president’s Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist supporters in violent clashes.

“We still have one week left, in which a lot can be done,” he said, urging all political forces to achieve real reconciliation for the nation’s sake.

The armed forces “will not remain silent while the country is sliding into an uncontrollable struggle,” the minister said.

“There is a state of division in society and the continuation of it is a danger to the Egyptian state and there must be consensus among all,” Sisi said, adding that the division would harm national security.

Since the January 25, 2011 uprising which ousted President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt has undergone a series of transitions, from military rule for a year until the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Morsi won a democratic election.

But the new government has been unable to clamp down on violence between opposing factions or lower the crime rate that mushroomed over the past two years.

57 founding members, many of them prominent US allies, will sign into creation the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on Monday, the first major global financial instrument independent from the Bretton Woods system.

Representatives of the countries will meet in Beijing on Monday to sign an agreement of the bank, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. All the five BRICS countries are also joining the new infrastructure investment bank.

The agreement on the $100 billion AIIB will then have to be ratified by the parliaments of the founding members, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a daily press briefing in Beijing.

The AIIB is also the first major multilateral development bank in a generation that provides an avenue for China to strengthen its presence in the world’s fastest-growing region.